3 posts tagged “sustainability”

Georgia Tech has a cool idea: they want to capture carbon emissions in a car, and recycle it into new fuel not based on petroleum.  Existent sequestration techniques don't address physically small sources of carbon emissions - but these sources apparently account for two-thirds of global carbon emissions.

In the first stage of the project, carbon will be captured on-board from conventional fuels.  When you refuel, you drop off the accumulated carbon gunge.  That is then shipped to a processing station to be turned into a new fuel.  Eventually, when the system ramps up, there'll be enough synthetic fuel that fossil fuels won't be needed.

What I like about this is the systems view.  It's also interesting that they put the sequestration machinery at the source - the car.  I also like their two-stage approach, which will help adoption.  I think one of the publications pertaining to this is here.  The original article I read is here.

There's a book soon to be published by David J.C. MacKay, a Cambridge University professor, called Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air.  There's a draft available for free at http://withouthotair.com/.  The site has a number of other interesting documents, including a 4-page summary of the book, and a fascinating experiment with mobile phone chargers.  There's even a link to a list of all the URLs in his book - very convenient and thoughtful.

I had the pleasure of meeting Prof. MacKay whilst on sabbatical in summer 2007.  What struck me most about him (besides the wry British wit which, I'm told, is due to something in the water) was how level-headed he was.  This, I think, comes through in his book.

This is my first post, so be gentle.

On 26 Nov 2007, I attended part of the Sustainable Building meeting held at York University and run by the Canadian Standards Association.  Here's a few notes and ideas from that session.

Note: Any problems in these notes are errors on my part and do not reflect errors of the presenters or organizers or the meeting.

Interesting links:

• ISO 21930: sustainability in building construction - environmental declaration of building products
• peakoil.ie: association for the study of peak oil & gas, Ireland
• SBTool 07: a downloadable tool designed to assess the environmental and sustainability performance of buildings
• MSGB v2.0: Minnesota Sustainable Building Guidelines (downloadable) - based on requirements & recommendations, not on a certification/rating system.
  
• Green Building Initiative: "a not for profit organization whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of building practises that result in energy-efficient, healthier and environmentally sustainable buildings by promoting credible and practical green building approaches for residential and commercial construction." This American initiative is entirely web-based, and some regionalization is possible.
• Athena Institute: has downloadable spreadsheet tools for lifecycle assessment. (Canada)
• EcoAction: site connecting business with environmentalism, sustainability, etc. (Canada)
  

• Regionalization was noted as a pressing, but entirely unresolved issue.
• Design for disassembly of buildings is generally seen as a radical idea, even though its quite commonplace in many kinds of engineering.  Perhaps "they" should be talking to "us" engineers about that more?
• Material selection is largely a matter of "trade-offs" between different characteristics.  However, the standard behaviour these days seems still based on treating a single characteristic as the only one that matters.  Again, this kind of trade-off analysis is something very well understood in other areas of engineering.
• A significant question at the government level seems to be whether to adopt a rating system or a standards approach.  I wonder why not a standard based on a rating system and get the best of both worlds?
• There was also some discussion about how standards can/should be adapted.  Obviously some adaptation can be necessary.  I think the solution is the need for frameworks or even meta-standards to guide the adaptation process.
• A lifecycle inventory database is an (usually) online system that provides the "raw" data needed to perform lifecycle analyses.  The US and Switzerland have them; there may be one in Japan too.  Canada does not have one.  Here's something an SDI could work on?  Try this google search to find out more about these things.